51.2 million uniques on mobile sets new sports category record; 363 million digital video clips on ESPN platforms and 55 million video clip starts on mobile phones set all-time highs; Eighth time in last nine months ESPN reached more than 60 million.
Content surrounding the NBA Playoffs, NFL Draft and MLB’s regular season propelled ESPN to finish No. 1 in May across all key audience metrics in the digital sports category. ESPN reached 68.0 million unique users across computers, smartphones and tablets, the fourth largest total for a single month in category history – behind only ESPN’s total in September 2013, November 2013 and March 2014 – and an increase of 42% from a year ago. This marks the eighth time in the past nine months that ESPN’s digital content has reached more than 60 million people.
Also, 51.2 million unique users accessed ESPN content on mobile devices, setting a category record for mobile reach in May, the third consecutive month that ESPN has established a new category high.
In addition, fans spent 5.8 billion minutes using ESPN digital properties, a category record for the month of May and up 20% from a year ago. ESPN accounted for 29.7% of all sports category usage on digital platforms, more than the Nos. 2 and 3 properties combined (Yahoo! Sports-NBC Sports Network had 11.7%, Bleacher Report-Turner Sports Network 9.9%.)
More results from the May comScore Multi-Platform report:
- May was the ninth consecutive month in which more unique people visited ESPN on smartphones and tablets (51.2 million) than on desktop and laptop computers (31.8 million uniques, 2.6 billion minutes.) 75% of ESPN’s total users accessed content on mobile devices, which generated 3.2 billion minutes of usage.
- May was the second straight month in which more than half of ESPN’s unique digital users (53%, 36.2 million people) exclusively accessed ESPN content on smartphones and tablets. 55% of all time spent with ESPN digital content was consumed by mobile device users.
- The 85.6 minutes per user spent with ESPN digital properties during May was more than any of the top 75 sports category entities.
- In the average minute throughout May, 130,330 people used ESPN digital properties on computers, smartphones and tablets. Among men 18 to 49, ESPN was the ninth most-used digital property in the U.S. during the month.
Additional results from ESPN Research and Analytics:
- Fans watched 362.7 million ESPN digital video clips on ESPN platforms in May, an all-time high and up 46% from a year ago. 54.8 million video clip starts came from mobile phones, also a record. 73% of all clips were viewed on computers, 21% on phones and tablets, and 6% on connected TVs.1
- Viewers spent 687.7 million minutes with WatchESPN and ESPN3 live and on-demand programming across all platforms, up 153% from May 2013. 4.1 million unique devices streamed WatchESPN and ESPN3 content.1
ESPN networks and ABC sports television content generated nearly 30 million tweets in May, accounting for one-third of all TV-related activity during the month. ESPN itself was the most-social TV network (broadcast or cable) during the month, with 3.1 million unique users sending 20.4 million tweets about ESPN programming.2 Other key social media metrics:
- ESPN counted more than 31 million unique followers across Twitter accounts in May, and had 32 million unique fans across ESPN Facebook pages.
- ESPN’s Twitter accounts were retweeted or favorited 10.7 million times.3
- 70 million people were reached by ESPN page content on Facebook, 56 million by SportsCenter page content.4
- 6.9 million people engaged with the ESPN Facebook page (liked a post, shared a story, left a comment), and 6.7 million also engaged with the SportsCenter page.4
- There were 18.9 million views of ESPN video on Twitter in May, a record. 1
1 Source: Adobe Analytics
2 Source: Nielsen SocialGuide
3 Source: Twitter
4 Source: Facebook
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